The Hale Guide

Five Steps to Realizing a Vision

“My grandfather was consumed by what he was doing,” says Caltech Associates member Sam Hale, now 75 years old and living in Santa Barbara. His grandfather—George Ellery Hale (1868–1938), who developed world-leading observatories and co-founded Caltech—fascinates him, although they never met.

More than half of Caltech’s undergraduates conduct research within their first year, and a few immerse themselves in Caltech’s culture of exploration and discovery even before the academic year commences.

In summer 2017, 20 incoming students honed their math skills and engaged in research through Caltech’s Freshman Summer Research Institute (FSRI). These science-minded scholars lived like a family for five weeks: They slept under one roof, ate meals together, and learned from those who came before them.

Working toward a future when scientists and engineers better reflect society’s diversity, FSRI introduces students from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds to math, research, and support services at Caltech.

The program pairs each participant with a faculty member, postdoc, or grad student who designs and oversees a five-week research project. In this story, three mentees describe how they felt stepping into the Caltech community, and three mentors explain how they welcomed them.

Incoming freshman Krystin Brown worked with postdoc Naima Sharaf, who studies the biological and chemical properties of molecules and atoms using x-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Why did Naima volunteer to be an FSRI mentor?

“In high school, I didn’t even know that you had to apply to get into college,” she says. “My parents weren’t familiar with the application process in the U.S., but luckily we figured it out. Now, mentoring is a passion for me. I love giving students a good start.”

Personal experience also inspired Federico Echenique, Caltech’s Allen and Lenabelle Davis Professor of Economics, to become a mentor.

“As soon as I arrived in the U.S. for graduate school, I wanted to turn around and go back home—but I couldn’t afford the plane ticket,” he says. “Those first few weeks were difficult. So I decided that making someone feel welcome is a way to help set them up for success.”

Federico developed a project for FSRI participant Ruy Gonzales Hermosillo involving analysis of the National Resident Matching Program’s algorithm for placing medical students into hospital residency and fellowship positions.

“The project was designed to be an end in itself,” Federico says. “There was the possibility of a more ambitious goal, but it wasn’t certain. Now I’d say that Ruy’s summer research has enabled us to get started on what I think will be a good paper.”

Postdoc Astrid Lamberts designed a research project for FSRI mentee Kali Drango to trace back where stars form and mergers happen by combining data collected from optical telescopes with new insights gleaned from LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves.

“To do your best work, it’s important to feel that you are surrounded by reasonable, friendly people you can turn to for help,” Astrid says.

“That’s something you learn by example. It describes our work group, and it also describes the FSRI program. Students come away knowing they’re not alone; they have each other. In that way, they’re like a family. I like to think of myself as an FSRI auntie.”

“Working with others, whether I was doing research with my mentor or problem sets with my friends, I came to see everyone’s strengths—including my own,” Ruy says.

“I felt that I was respected as a researcher and classmate—just for being myself. It didn’t take long to feel at home.”

“If I had a question that my mentor wasn’t available to answer, I knew all I had to do was walk down the hall—doors were open and people were happy to help,” Kali recalls.

“It was like that in the dorm, too, when I was studying. The opposite of competitive.”

She adds: “FSRI also hosted a lunch for women in STEM. It was an amazing experience being in the company of such accomplished professionals. They are role models to me, for their success and also for being so supportive of one another.”

At the end of the five-week program, FSRI classmates delivered TED Talk-style presentations about their research to their mentors and peers.

“For my presentation, I talked about how I introduced a fluorine-labeled amino acid into a protein,” Krystin says. “But this summer I didn’t just learn how to mix different substances. Naima gave me space to figure out things on my own and become more comfortable with the process of trial and error. She helped me learn how to be okay with not having the right answer.”

Corporate and private donors help support Caltech’s goal to diversify the STEM graduate pool and workforce. This year’s FSRI cohort of 20—the largest to date—was sponsored in part by a grant from Johnson & Johnson that aims to increase participation of women in medicine and technology development.

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“At Caltech, I got an up-close and personal look at academic excellence. As a mother, I constantly shared stories about Caltech with my children, and they came to realize how Caltech helped make me who I am. As my younger son, David, found his calling in science, I’m glad Caltech also could help shape him into the scientist he is today.”

“Raised in Puerto Rico, my father came to Caltech on the GI Bill after World War II. The demanding curriculum, delivered in a foreign tongue, nearly caused him to flunk out his first year. Having survived Caltech, he told many stories that inspired my sons and me to have a deep respect for Caltech, which set the stage for us to flourish in Caltech’s rigorous academic environment.”

“Having my brother and sister attend only strengthened my ties to Caltech because I was visiting campus quite frequently to see them and their friends. I valued my interactions with Caltech students so much that I now have a tradition of meeting undergraduates and sharing my career experiences with them whenever I’m in town.”

Nina Cardoza (BS ’94)

Spouse of John Krowas (BS ’93) and mother of Harrison Krowas (BS ’17)

“Halfway through Harrison’s freshman year, he called John and me and asked why we didn’t tell him how hard Caltech is. We had tried, but it’s kind of indescribable.

“As Caltech alumni, we all share this common experience that binds us together like a family—unless you have survived it, it is difficult to understand.”

“The conversations Lee and I have with Ken and Elizabeth about Caltech veer more to the differences than the shared experiences. Much has changed since I was a student. Yes, the challenge is the same, but the core curriculum has changed, there are certainly more women on campus, and there are more extracurricular opportunities.”

“Among our alumni friends, we joke that attending Caltech was like being a marine in a foxhole. When you go through an intense experience, you develop camaraderie with those who were in the foxhole with you. Even now, these friendships are a great source of strength for me. It’s kind of nice to have family members who had the same experience and can understand.”

The Hale Guide

Five Steps to Realizing a Vision

“My grandfather was consumed by what he was doing,” says Caltech Associates member Sam Hale, now 75 years old and living in Santa Barbara. His grandfather—George Ellery Hale (1868–1938), who developed world-leading observatories and co-founded Caltech—fascinates him, although they never met.

1. Aim High

George Hale came to Pasadena in 1904 to found Mount Wilson Observatory—foremost in the world for half a century. Three years later, this man of many visions joined the board of Throop Polytechnic Institute, seeing an opportunity to transform the local trade school into the future Caltech.

“He had an idea for creating a school of science and engineering in the West that would include a humanities curriculum to help the scientist become a complete person,” Sam Hale says.

Today, Sam Hale helps sustain his grandfather’s vision by chairing the board of the Mount Wilson Institute, which manages the famous observatory. He and his wife, Sylvia, also belong to the Caltech Associates, a vibrant organization George Hale helped found.

Image: George Hale using a spectrograph in the observatory’s 60-foot tower

2. Communicate

“One of my grandfather’s most notable accomplishments was being such a good communicator of his vision and why it was important,” says Sam Hale, who learned about his grandfather through his parents’ stories and his own reading.

In advocating his plan for Caltech, George Hale drew eminent MIT chemist and passionate educator Arthur Amos Noyes to Pasadena in 1913. Noyes would establish the iconic core curriculum that gives Caltech undergraduates a fundamental understanding of the major branches of science and of the humanities.

These three, with Millikan at the helm, propelled Caltech to global prominence within the decade.

Image: The portrait of (from left) Noyes, Millikan, and Hale that hangs in Caltech’s Athenaeum

3. Sidestep the Comfort Zone

If you’ve ever gotten lost at Caltech—say, landed in a courtyard when you were looking for a wet lab—you can thank George Hale for that, too.

“In a school of science and engineering, in which graduate studies and research were to be emphasized,” George Hale wrote, “in spite of every effort to attract the students toward humanistic studies and to broaden the range of their interests, the tendency toward absorption in some narrow specialty is extreme.”

4. Support the Mission

Hale, Millikan, and Noyes knew that Caltech would need support beyond its small community of scholars and alumni. And they had personally observed that business leaders enjoy connecting with people at the forefront of science and helping expand human knowledge.

So, in 1926, Millikan convened a group of 100 prominent Southern Californians, each of whom pledged significant annual support for Caltech.

These Caltech Associates would “participate in the enlarging opportunities of such a world center,” reported the Los Angeles Times, and witness “the most significant of the new developments in science.”

5. Connect

Caltech Associates have endowed scholarships, fellowships, professorships, and an educational innovation fund to help students and faculty aim high and make world-changing breakthroughs. Members have helped fund the construction of 37 campus buildings. One of their proudest contributions is Caltech’s Athenaeum, another brainchild of George Hale.

The Athenaeum is Sam Hale’s favorite place on campus. The club brings together people from Caltech, JPL, the Huntington Library, and the Associates, distilling George Hale’s vision of uniting science, the humanities, and industry. “It really is a meeting place for the community, led by Caltech,” Sam Hale says. “Just being there and seeing that portrait of Millikan, Noyes, and my grandfather—it always gives me goosebumps.”

Image (from left): Brothers Sam (holding his son Gavin), George, and Brack Hale, circa 1989, at the dedication of Caltech’s bust of their grandfather